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Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Egypt: I Did Warn About This

Last year when America supported
protests in Egypt to topple President Mubarak, many of my
friends saw this as a good thing. In all the excitement about
democracy coming to Egypt, I felt compelled to offer some warnings. I wrote that,

Despite the criticisms that can be made
against him, President Mubarack has provided a stabilizing influence in
the region, helping Israel secure its borders and keeping radical Islam
in check…. What Obama’s approach overlooks is that the “free elections”
in Middle Eastern countries can often be a summons for the advancement
of Islamic radicalism and fundamentalist groups like the Muslim
Brotherhood.

I then went on to point out that American interference in Middle
Eastern politics has normally backfired, and I predicted that President
Obama's support of the Arab Spring in Egypt could prove to be an uncanny
repeat of what happened in Iran during the Middle of the last century.

In an attempt for the West to regain control of Iran’s oil, Britain
had urged the United States to intervene in Iranian politics during the
Truman’s administration. Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson,
refused, urging that the British were “destructive and determined on a
rule or ruin policy in Iran.” It was not until General Dwight Eisenhower
was elected President in 1953 that Britain had another chance to regain
control of Iran’s petroleum reserves. Churchill put an embargo on
Iran’s oil industry while the CIA began spreading anti-Mossadegh
propaganda, hoping to convince the Shah to dismiss Mossadegh from the
post of prime minister. At first the Shah refused to go along with the
American plan to overthrow his democratically elected government (a plan
known to the CIA as ‘Operation Ajax’). However, after continued
pressure from America the Shah relented. The prime minister was then
arrested and kept under house arrest until his death in 1967.

With Iran’s democratic government out of the way, the Shah’s rule
became increasingly autocratic. While he made friends of America
(granting US companies the majority of the country’s oil contracts,
which had been the intended outcome of Operation Ajax), he steadily
alienated his own people by crushing all political dissent. This set the
stage for Iran’s Revolution in 1978 when the religious leader,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini helped to mobilize opposition to the Shah
and his pro-American policies. The following year 98% of the country
voted to replace the monarchy with an Islamic Republic, unaware that
Khomeini was planning to use the new government as a front to rule as a
dictator. Since then Iran has suffered under a theocratic Shiite
government and remains a focal point for militant Islam and is one of
the worst countries for the persecution of Christians. How much better
it would have been had America never got involved in undermining Iran’s
government.

I haven't had to wait that long before being able
to say, of Egypt, "How much better if America had never got involved."
(And yes, America did act behind the scenes to topple President Mubarack
, as I showed in my article, 'Egypt: The Key Players.')

Perhaps it is time for America to stop meddling in the Middle East. At least, that is what I argued in an article I wrote last month for the Examiner. My article was titled 'Why America Should Stop Meddling in the Middle East,' and suggests that in almost every case America's presence in the Middle East works directly contrary to our national security goals.